[700 club?] The Sinclair live music venue coming to Harvard Square this fall

When the House of Blues opened on Lansdowne Street in 2009, much was made of the chain venue’s roots in Harvard Square. Three years later, live music on a grand scale is returning to the Cambridge neighborhood.

Bowery Cambridge, an extension of the New York concert booking agency that operates Royale under Bowery Boston, will announce as early as next month THE SINCLAIR, a planned 10,000-square-foot multi-level live music venue and eatery at 50 Church Street, the site of the former firehouse-themed restaurant and nightclub Phatt Boys, which shuttered in 2006.

The room could hold up to 525 concertgoers and 175 restaurant patrons, rivaling not only Bowery's own Royale on Tremont Street in Boston, but also the Middle East Downstairs in Central Square. The capacity is a touch more than Live Nation's newly-opened Brighton Music Hall in Allston, but far less than the music business giant's Paradise Rock Club on Commonwealth Avenue.

Sources tell the Phoenix that the new space will collect a multiple existing lots on Church Street, including the old Brew Moon space, and combine them for a combined nightlife complex that will also feature comedy and a restaurant.

In November, Cambridge Day reported that the restaurant component is “now set up to hold 175 diners inside and another 52 on a seasonal private outdoor patio.” The report listed the Sinclair’s requested hours, by Bowery Boston's Josh Bhatti, as “8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday and the night before legal holidays.”

Phatt Boys was located behind Dado Tea and above Fire + Ice, and the planning space sits not too far from the legendary Club Passim.